the plan was directed by david petraeus and backed by pentagon leaders and secretary of state hillary clinton. the white house had doubts which rebels could be trusted with the arms. those details came to light during a senate hearing on libya and republicans had some tough questions for panetta, who revealed he and president obama spoke once during the eight-hour benghazi attack that left four americans dead and explained why the pentagon didn't send any war planes. >> reporter: the reason planes were not launched the attack came in two waves in two different locations and after the first wave ended after about an hour and a half they all thought it was over plus he said there wasn't enough actionable intelligence on the ground to act. >> you can't just willy-nilly send f-16s there and blow the hell out of a place without knowing what's taking place. >> reporter: under questioning by republicans secretary panetta and the joint chiefs of staff martin dempsey say they were aware in the months before attack u.s. ambassador chris stevens was worried about security in libya. >> did you re